


brand new moon, brand new sun

by AmyDancepantsPeralta



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fertility Issues, Peraltiago Angst, Peraltiago fluff, Set after 7.06, Trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23065132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyDancepantsPeralta/pseuds/AmyDancepantsPeralta
Summary: She hates what this has become - has genuinely begun to resent the fact that they have to tryso damn hardfor something that should be so simple.  There are times when she considers throwing in the towel - of standing back and waiting for fate to play it’s cards - and then her mind imagines what their children would look like, and before she knows it Amy is setting another UD alarm into the clock in their bedroom.
Relationships: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago
Comments: 12
Kudos: 71





	brand new moon, brand new sun

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm not alone in saying this, but 7.06 will stick with me for a long time to come. And this, I guess, is one form of me expressing the thoughts that came from the episode. I genuinely hope you enjoy ... and I'm sorry if it's a hot mess.
> 
> Title from Xavier Rudd: Follow the sun. ☀️

**brand new moon, brand new sun**

From the first time she had presented her parents with a ‘consideration list’ for her upcoming 6th birthday party, Amy Santiago knew she was a Planner. 

It had been a carefully curated form, with possible locations itemised in order of preference (the local park rated higher than their backyard, the planetarium superseded the park); followed by a hopeful guest list - her already neat handwriting deliberately ranking her classmates from Most Likely to be invited (Katrina M) to Least (Kyle D). 

Her parents had been impressed by the work that had gone into it, and that year began her eleven year streak of amazing birthdays surrounded by the universe and the closest of her friends.It also taught her that preparation led to results, and by the time she was eight Amy had already begun to map out her weeks well in advance.She had favourite markers, and a colour-coded system for specific events; and as the years wore on and her preferences changed, one simple truth remained:preparation and planning was everything, and hard work always pays off _._

While it was true that the life calendar that she’d put together during her first year of college hadn’t planned or predicted for the undeniable impact that Jake Peralta would have on her life, for the first time in a long time Amy had simply found herself adjusting to the unfamiliar thrill of _not knowing_.It had only taken two or three dates for her to realise that being with Jake had changed everything - infinitely for the better - and from the first time she’d stayed the entire weekend at his apartment, and woke up Sunday morning to find that he’d run down to his local bodega purely to buy her a copy of the New York Times so that she could still do the weekly crossword, Amy knew that she was in it for the long haul. 

Jake both encouraged and challenged her, and made her smile more than anybody in the entire world.He loved Amy, with every fibre of his being, and would happily shout it from the rooftop of every building in Brooklyn if ever given the chance.And Amy was so deeply in love with Jake - the kind of love that vibrated from every pore, and for the longest time she had truly believed such a thing only existed in the great literary classics.It’s the kind of love that turns you upside down and inside out and makes you whole: that completes you even when you thought you were already complete.He was the love of her life and her best friend all wrapped up in one handsome package, and the night that he’d sat beside her, shrugging and giving her that beautiful smile of his before suggesting that they should start trying for a baby, will always remain one of her favourite moments. 

Truthfully, Amy had known that it wasn’t going to happen instantaneously.Her body needed to adjust to no longer being on the pill for starters, and sometimes _good things simply take time_.It was several months before the fear began to creep in, and it took a pregnancy announcement from an officer on the second floor to make their sex a little more scheduled -a little more time specific - and while The Jake Way had been a _lot_ of fun, it too had not yielded results, and things began to become clear. 

This was a test.And tests were something that Amy knew like the back of her hand.It had been a rush of adrenaline, to compile all the information and fill binder after binder with scores of insider tips and tricks.This was what Amy knew, and what she knew she could do well.There were calendars and graphs, coloured post-its and ovulation charts and a schedule that rivalled all the other schedules she’d ever put together in her life.Suddenly, Amy begins to feel in control again - because _preparation and planning was everything, and hard work always pays off._

She tries to shrug off the disappointment when the first test she takes after Operation Pregnancy begins, throwing the stick into the bin and shaking her head quickly when he looks at her expectantly.Keeps her face positive when she sticks her head out of the work restroom a couple of days later, throwing out a casual _nope!_ that doesn’t sound casual at all to her, and clearly Jake agrees because as soon as the door swings shut behind her he’s pulling her into his arms.It’s entirely inappropriate for the workplace, but his arms are so tight around her and it feels so incredibly _right_ that for a moment, the buzzing world around them fades away.He whispers in her ear that _there’s always next time_ , and she can feel herself nodding, pushing the doubts down further as she rests her head against her husband’s chest. 

Two and a half months in she begins branching out, buying a few different brands of pregnancy tests and favouring one that has a panel along the side that simply states _‘pregnant’_ or _‘not pregnant’_.It’s a blunt statement, but negative signs have never been welcome in Amy’s life (all these years later, she can still _vividly_ recall the first time she received an A minus), and she’s seen more than her fair share by now. 

As it turns out, the words sting just as much as the symbol.

Birthdays come and go, Halloween passes and so does Thanksgiving, and then suddenly it’s Christmas and Amy still isn’t pregnant.There are three more officers in the precinct (not to mention their neighbour and her younger sister-in-law), that are pregnant; but Amy definitely is not. 

The morning the thirtieth test gets thrown into the bin Amy climbs into the shower, desperate to wash away the overwhelming sensation of _defeat_ \- but no matter how hard she scrubs, the feeling just never seems to fade.Each attempt burns, like another red mark against her name - a report card filled up with multiple Fs - and she’s _so determined_ to prove that they can do this, but … _maybe_ _she_ _can’t_. 

Her hands run over the curve of her abdomen as the suds fall down her body and she tenses her muscles, pushing out her stomach and briefly giving into the fantasy that someday - maybe even someday _soon_ \- there will be a baby growing there.Her chest tightens under the pressure of it all and she releases a huff of breath, dipping her head back to let the water run down her face, her tears mingling with the rivulets as her stomach collapses back to it’s regular state.She feels like such a failure.And Amy Santiago has _never_ been a fan of failure.

She runs her hands over her face as she dries off, avoiding the mirror but trying desperately to erase any sign of her devastation before leaving the bathroom.This whole process hasn’t been easy on either of them - she needs Jake’s positivity now more than ever - and while Amy knows that she promised herself never to hide anything from her husband, the idea of admitting that she’s _just no good at this_ was more than she was willing to say out loud just yet.Still, his careful eyes pick up on the droop of her shoulders - on the frustration hidden terribly on her face - and as her feet pad down their hallway he’s already putting together her favourite tea, leading her to their still new (and _ridiculously_ comfortable) couch.His shoulder has always been her favourite place to rest, and today is no exception, but the aching no longer seems to fade as quickly. 

She hates what this has become - has genuinely begun to resent the fact that they have to try _so damn hard_ for something that should be so simple.There are times when she considers throwing in the towel - of standing back and waiting for fate to play it’s cards - and then her mind imagines what their children would look like, and before she knows it Amy is setting another UD alarm into the clock in their bedroom. 

Then time wears on, and failure seems to become the only certainty. 

It was an unfamiliar territory, this regularity of rejection.She’d never realised that failure had teeth - sharp, pointy little fangs that dug into her skin and whispered in her ear whenever her thoughts would finally grow quiet.There was an echoing sting to it all, the knowing that deep down there was no reason they weren’t getting pregnant that didn’t lead directly back to her.Amy wanted to grow a family with Jake - to watch a miniature version of him grow and take on the world.Another gentle boy with scruffy hair, and the sweetest of hearts that always seemed to be far bigger than his body could possibly conceal, getting the chance to finally grow up in a world made entirely of love.To give him a sister, and then maybe another brother, and watch them play in the backyard of their house in the suburbs as she and Jake cooked dinner every evening.It was a future that she could see so clearly - one that seemed so bright that it just _didn’t seem fair_ for it not to happen. 

All of the pregnancy journals and fertility guides remind her that _none of this is personal_ , and that sometimes the human body just finds it that little bit harder to conceive.But to Amy, this is as personal as it gets.She’s always been a straight-A student, who excelled at everything, but for some stupid reason her body simply didn’t want to co-operate.

She’d give Jake anything - she’d give him _everything_ , if he only asked.But this?This, she cannot seem to do.And it broke her heart just that little more, every single time they failed.

It takes the suggestion of adding their colleague’s soon to be ex-wife’s brother in law on Facebook so they can ask for conception tips to finally push Amy over the edge, the insanity of it all splitting her heart into two because _she simply cannot handle_ another reminder that she is broken - that her body is broken, and she cannot give Jake the family that he so truly deserves. 

None of this made any sense.This was a test, and Amy was used to making tests _her bitch_.She excelled at studying and revising and learning and _winning_ \- but no matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard they studied and moulded their bodies into perfectly hospitable vessels for procreation - nothing was working.

She can feel her chest constricting as she blurts out _I’m sorry I’m bad at making babies,_ and she can tell that her heart is one more word away from splitting open completely, but then Jake shakes his head, and tells her not to say such a thing, and all the reasons she loves him as deeply as she does rush to the forefront. 

He tells her they are a family, just the two of them, and _damnit_ if he isn’t completely correct.They _are_ a family: a party of two, and it’s smaller than the one she grew up with but it’s filled with just as much love.There are options, he reminds her, and even though all of this is completely out of her control and that is the _worst_ thing in the world for her, right now none of it seems as bad as it did only a moment ago.Despite all the heartache that exists within her, Amy can feel herself begin to smile, and it feels like coming home. 

Jake leans in, and his lips are so softly pressed against hers; so gentle and tender, so full of reassurance that truly, he is _all_ Amy needs to get by. 

His hand lingers on her thigh for the entire cab ride home.It’s entirely welcome, and the strong grip of Jake’s fingers on her skin is something that Amy has completely missed, and she wants to tell him but her mouth is _far_ too occupied with kissing her husband.It’s the sweetest and greatest feeling, this notion of kissing Jake for no other reason than _to_ _kiss_ _him_ , long and hard and sweet and soft and definitely more passionate as they feel the cab take the familiar stops and turns that lead to their apartment. 

She’s missed this - this feeling of making love to her husband, to chasing release and holding their sweaty bare skin tightly against each other in the afterglow.Of holding each other instead of hugging her knees to her chest, of considering the whole thing to be anything other than _just another uterine deposit_.It’s the best night they’ve had in a long time, and part of her wonders if maybe they should have just given up trying a lot sooner. 

And then a week goes by, and her period is a day and a half late, and Amy knows she shouldn’t get her hopes up just yet, but this is how her cousin Mariela got pregnant and _maybe they both had just needed to relax_ before it could all happen.So she waits until they’re home before telling Jake about the last boxed test, the one that had been shoved to the back so that it was out of sight and out of mind, and he squeezes her hand as she lifts herself up and off the couch. 

When the word _Not_ begins to appear, Amy waits for the crushing disappointment to wash over her, already trying to figure out a way to stall her departure from the bathroom so that Jake doesn’t have to see just how upset another negative makes her.And the sadness appears - truth be told, it never really went away - but this time, the edges don’t seem as sharp.Instead, the soft voice of her husband telling her _we are a family … you and me_ washes over her, and Amy raises her head, staring at her reflection in the mirror and nodding at the woman she sees in front of her.He was right - the two of them were already a family.A family stronger than some, because regardless of how many times the world tried to pull them apart, they always found a way to come back to each other. 

Nothing about her has changed today, but Amy knows that she’s no longer the same.It’s a brand new day, and their future now lay claim to a whole bunch of question marks but with Jake, the unexpected didn’t seem so terrifying. After all, she hadn’t expected to fall in love with the overactive detective that sat across from her for all those years - but fall she did.Hadn’t imagined their wedding to take place in front of the precinct, with shredded versions of her favourite forms covering the asphalt as she walked down the aisle towards her soon-to-be-husband.Never dreamed of sharing her honeymoon with anyone but the love of her life.But all of that had happened, and she wouldn’t change it for anything. 

Maybe they would try IVF.Or maybe they would adopt - perhaps even foster.Maybe they’d even become a family of fur babies - hypo-allergenic dogs and cats and some fishes swimming around in a tank. 

(But no guinea pigs. _Definitely no guinea pigs._ ) 

They would study the options, and plan for the future, but this time the weight on Amy’s shoulders seems far lighter.Whatever the decision, they would make it together, and the sense of calm that rushes over Amy at that thought suddenly makes the negative test in her hand seem far less personal, and more a fact of life.She wasn’t in control of this process, and for all the reasons she hates that fact, she loves Jake all the more. 

And with Jake by her side, they can get through anything - because no matter what, they’ll do it together. 

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so ... hopefully that wasn't too angsty or terrible. But I really love that they've taken this path, because it's a story that needs to be told and I just know that they're going to handle it well. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome here, and endlessly appreciated. ♥️


End file.
